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Alex Dolin, stress management coach

lifestyle

Water is so essential to our human bodies. Fortunately a lot of people have already said it for me:

Our bodies are made of mostly water:

Therefore it plays many roles in our body:

If that were not enough….

Some added benefits…

The old myth once was that we need drink 8 8 once glasses of water everyday:

Science is showing that is great if you are about 160 pounds. But that could be too much water for a kid and not enough for someone who is much larger. The new adage is to divide your weight in half in pounds then multiply by .8 then the number will be in ounces.

So maybe an easier number to remember is 40% of your body weight. Here is a nice cheat sheet:

5. My fast food diet- I do not eat fast food regularly. At most, when I can afford it I will have s Wendy’s spicy chicken sandwich and maybe I will get half-priced sushi (also once a week). Here is a recent article on my ideal Chinese restaurant. Chinese food can be healthy. It is my Achilles’s heal. I love Chinese food.

Keep up with all things “Fully Alive Life Coaching,” with my daily paper that features over 200 contributors but most importantly my feeds on Twitter, Youtube and Facebook. Here is the link: http://paper.li/f-1381598529

Did you know that just maintaining a sad face drags you down? Your mind and body both are negatively by the a frown. The idea of “fake it until you make it” is more than cliche. Science backs it.

First, let’s examine the benefits of smiling. Did you know that smiling lowers your heart rate? AlsoNeurotransmitters called endorphins are released when you smile. These make us feel happy. It’s not easy to keep smiling in stressful situations, but studies report that doing exactly that has health benefits. When recovering from a stressful situation, study participants who were smiling had lower heart rates than those with a neutral facial expression.

A smile also makes one more attractive, easy going, and empathetic. In fact, a study in the European Journal of Social Psychology found that smiling actually makes you more attractive to those you smile at. A study found that smiling can make you more comfortable in situations you would otherwise feel awkward in.

Smiling even makes your immune system stronger by making your body produce white blood cells to help fight illnesses. One study found that hospitalized children who were visited by story-tellers and puppeteers who made them smile and laugh had higher white blood cell counts than those children who weren’t visited.

Studies have found that people are more willing to engage socially with others who are smiling. A smile and all the positive emotions associated with it are contagious. University of Pittsburgh study concluded that people who smiled were considered “more trustworthy” than people with non-smiling facial expressions.

Laughing too has a ton of scientific benefits. Levels of stress hormones like cortisol and epinephrine tend to decrease during bouts of laughter. Laughter is used to reduce stress, relieve pain and boost immunological responses by doctors and therapists. Laughter has been shown to lower or balance blood pressure and increase vascular blood flow. Laughing 100 times is equivalent to 10 minutes on a rowing machine or 15 minutes on the stationary bicycle. Similar to smiling, laughing also increases endrophines in the body and also makes a person more pleasant to be around.

Laughter is relaxing to our bodies and muscles. In one study, students who watched a funny video in their classroom responded with lower levels of aggression in tense situations.

Negative emotions are bad for body. Science is beginning to confirm what certain wise men have said at different points in history. King David said, “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.” Prov. 17:22. Your mind and mental state can have a profound affect on your physical body, your spiritual experience, and your over-all quality of life. The mind, the body, and the spirit are all inextricably interconnected. When one is affected, the other two suffer.

Here is another interesting point. When you are stressed do you clench your right hand or left hand? Assuming you are right handed, you probably clench your right hand. This is normal, new there is stress, the body gets more tense. A long clench on the right hand or many through-out the day, though could suggest too much stress.If you notice that you do this. Try something else: Try your left hand when you are stressed out. Some athletes may improve their performance under pressure simply by squeezing a ball or clenching their left hand before competition to activate certain parts of the brain, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association. Dogs do this too with their tails. When dogs are anxious they wag their tag from right to left, but when they are happy they wag their tail from left to right!

I leave you with one activity for you. Try this experiment, place a weight on a string and then hold your hand steady while holding the string and letting the weight drop. See how long you can hold it still and steady. Next, think about moving the string clockwise but do not do it, only think about it. Slowly the weight will move clockwise. Now, think about it moving in a counter-clockwise direction but do not actually initiate your muscles…slowly the weight will change directions!

This is an amazing proof that our mind and emotions do really strongly effect the rest of our body, if the science was not enough for you!

Keep up with all things “Fully Alive Life Coaching,” with my daily paper that features over 200 contributors but most importantly my feeds on Twitter, Youtube and Facebook. Here is the link: http://paper.li/f-1381598529

Keep up with all things “Fully Alive Life Coaching,” with my daily paper that features over 200 contributors but most importantly my feeds on Twitter, Youtube and Facebook. Here is the link: http://paper.li/f-1381598529

-Lack of Assertiveness or not knowing when to say ‘no’ is another common roadblock.

–Perfectionism can have a reverse effect in self-care, the lies is that if we cannot do it perfectly, there is no sense in trying.-A major myth is that self-care is in definition. What is self-care? Why care? Self-care is holistic. Some people get caught up thinking it is one thing or another and end up neglecting something obvious. -The Questions of what to do first? Who to listen to? What is the best thing to do? How do I do it? –Fear of failure. Fear of success. Fear of commitment. Fear of taking the first step….

All of these and others are things to look-out when beginning or continuing on in the path of self-care. One of the most difficult things for a busy individual is motivating them to spend time that is not “productive.” God created us to be productive and being productive is a good thing. Remember though, that God also created us to be healthy and live a balanced life. It can be tough for some people to find a hobby or a distraction because they want to live so obsessed with making money or making a lasting impression, that having a hobby seems out of the picture. But the truth is having a hobby can be productive and altruistic. It can make you a better person and a better worker. There are countless amounts of organizations and volunteer opportunities that are worthy!

There are three parts of happiness:1. Being good (Your own self-care in health, happiness, character, personal growth, etc) 2. Doing good (Full effort, productivity, high quality and hard work, etc)3. Creatinggood (This is our volunteering/giving back/paying forward, etc)

To be fully healthy and happy you need all three aspects. So finding a hobby is so essential for creating good as well as in living a balanced life.

Suggestions for Creating Good:

1. It could be service-driven activity that builds into the community, Volunteering at a church ministry, a kitchen soup, food pantry, homeless shelters, health clinic, service project groups: like Lions Club, Eagle Club, Kiwanis Club, Habitat for Humanity, Big Brother/Big Sister….the list goes on and on

2. It could be something that you enjoy doing, a passion or art. And contributing it to the community….book club, writing a book, playing in a band, leading worship at church, writing music, creating a coffee house event or do poetry readings, or other art/dance.

3. It could look different for everyone. It may not be your typical art or service project. It could be volunteering at a gym or working at YMCA and offering yoga, martial arts, gun safety classes, presenting research data, this could look like something very practical and tangible in information or in actual practice.